The education secretary, Michael Gove, has promised to abolish illiteracy and innumeracy in the UK, following George Osborne's pledge this week to create a full employment society.

Gove's pledge in a speech to the British Chambers of Commerce is part of a co-ordinated Conservative attempt to paint a big picture of where a second-term Tory government would take the country.

Party strategists are gearing up for difficult local and European elections, and feel the need to offer more than a further diet of public spending cuts. Gove claimed the Tory record on employment creation showed the Conservatives were "the real party of labour and the real party of social justice".

He said: "We need to ensure we eliminate illiteracy and innumeracy in Britain in the same way as developing nations know they need to secure clean drinking water and eliminate malaria if their children are to flourish."

He said the goal is similar "as our forefathers more than a hundred years ago knew they had to eradicate polio and TB if children were to flourish. So we must ensure no child grows up in modern Britain with their futures irredeemably blighted by illiteracy and innumeracy".

He said: "We want at least 85% of primary school pupils to reach the level of literacy and numeracy that means they're on course to get good grades at GCSE."

He pointed out that by the end of year 1 at school, "every child is now checked to make sure they are decoding words fluently – helping teachers to make sure pupils are making progress in reading, and to identify any child who might need extra help. Failure to secure a good maths or English GCSE renders any student effectively unemployable.

"Teachers will also be expected to assess pupils at the end of key stage 1 – when children are 6 or 7 – to ensure they are making appropriate progress in literacy and numeracy. A new test in spelling, punctuation and grammar will inform teachers' assessment of writing and help keep children on course."

Yet in 2012, 44% of pupils failed to secure a GCSE pass in maths and English by the age of 16 and almost half never studied these subjects again afterwards.

The commitment to full employment was endorsed today by Robert Halfon, one of the Tory backbenchers pushing this campaign theme with his frontbench. He said far from being un-Conservative, real full employment is about the government creating the conditions for jobs, through welfare changes, ending the poverty trap, achieving a living wage by cutting taxes for low income earners, and lowering costs and red tape for businesses.

"We Conservatives can't allow the left to have a monopoly on moral mission, even if it is just about the safety net. Let's use our aspiration of full employment to really communicate to the public that voting Conservative isn't just about necessity when times are tough but is about jobs for all those who want them."

Gove spoke as a thinktank published research showing the fall in the numbers of people not in education of training during the economic downturn was four times greater than in any other European country.

Before the crisis hit, the country had one of the best records, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said. But while there was an increase from 2007 in 15 of 24 countries studied – there was a drop of 4% in Britain, four times more than any of the other nine where the number fell, it said.

The report also concluded that one in 10 European workers are now under-employed – with many mid-skilled workers taking on low-skill roles. More than one in 10 are still expected to be unemployed next year.

The IPPR director, Nick Pearce, said: "During the downturn, the UK has kept people in work but not invested sufficiently in capital, human or physical. That drags down the productivity of our workers and therefore our living standards. The UK's future lies in well-skilled work, which makes our dramatic decline in the proportion of people in education and training in the Great Recession a serious concern."